or work for a copycat for the rest of your life? It seems like Apple's business strategy is largely consisted of stealing Samsung's business partners (Intrinsity, Anobity) or stealing employees from Google Maps or Samsung's semi team. Can Apple do anything original?

Well, the 9th circuit courts certainly think it has jurisdiction in other countries (see recent Microsoft vs. Motorola appeal).. Also note, there is no appeal yet. Samsung's lawyers QE are asking for re-trial (see Groklaw.com) and I think they got a pretty good case for retrial/mistrial there (thanks all to the jury foreman V. Hogan who really likes to talk to the press).

I don't think that matters at all. HTC is going down the tube regardless of their supplier switch. Nokia & RIM are more or less doomed. It doesn't seem like Google is interested in Motorola's hardware bussiness all that much. So that only leaves Samsung and Apple now. And let's not forget, Samsung controls 95+% of the AMOLED market. HTC can go only so far to distance itself from Samsung - they tried it a couple of years back..

What exactly is the point? Sony depends just as much on Samsung for displays. In fact, Samsung bought out all of the Sony & Samsung LCD venture a couple of years back, so now everything is more or less manufactured by Samsung (I'm guessing that must have been why HTC switched back to Samsung after having made an announcement that they would switch to Sony). Also remember that Sony is one of Samsung's top customers with $12B sales from Samsung in 2010.

Well, not really.. IMO, losing money to patent trolls (*cough*) is not intellectual property theft. And it remains to be seen whether Mr. Hogan's verdict will be upheld in the court of appeals (or whether it be declared a mistrial/retrial this December). Samsung doesn't have to pay anything for at least another 2-3 years. Given Samsung's mobile 100+% growth in revenue, units old, (90+% or $3B+ more yoy) profit, I think Samsung could easily afford to give away a...

HTC made the same announcement a couple of years back - when Samsung wasn't able to keep up with HTC's demand, largely due to the increasing internal demand from Samsung mobile division. I thought HTC switched from Samsung's AMOLED to SONY's TFT LCDs. I'm not too surprised that HTC switched back to Samsung (from Sony), especially considering Samsung's large share of AMOLE manufactured worldwide, 95+%. Almost everyone in AMOLED business has manufacturing/yield...